Two Thousand One Hundred and Thirty-Two
by Paige242
Summary: In 2132, Christopher Halliwell thinks about the last links to his mortal life. All he can do now is watch.


He watched as the bride and groom stepped out onto the manor's porch, waving joyfully at those who had gathered to wish them well. He'd been waiting for this moment for over two hours now, but as he caught sight of the beaming girl he knew that it had been worth it.

Even though he had never truly met her, he had watched her grow and his heart filled with love as he caught a glimpse of this momentous day from afar.

It was sheer luck that the house across the street was empty that afternoon and, while he had felt guilty for breaking an entering (well, orbing and entering, technically), he had been happy for this concealed vantage point.

He wished he could have simply crossed the road to celebrate in person. These people were technically family, after all—and Teresa was his great-great granddaughter. But he had done the 'right thing' and stepped back from mortal life over three decades ago now. He still watched, perhaps more than he should have, but he knew that he no longer had a place in any of their lives.

It wouldn't have been right to interfere.

His time had gone, even though he had not.

His children had passed on many years ago and most of his grandchildren were gone now too. Teresa's grandmother, Marie, was the last one who remained—and it was difficult to see her now, looking sickly and weak as she watched the wedding festivities from her wheelchair. Chris could still remember the day Marie had been born. His son Matthew had passed her to him, beaming with pride. She was the youngest in her family, the third sister in the branch and a powerful witch. She'd developed telekenisis, like him, but her magic had been entirely wiccan.

Even his children had inherited primarily wiccan powers. None of them had been able to orb—Matthew had telekentic orbing, and Penny had been able to heal. But other than that, they had been regular witches. That hadn't bothered Chris at the time, of course. He was proud of everything they did and he had not yet realized what the quick decline of whitelighter magic through the generations would mean.

It wasn't until his forties that it began to sink in. They had all noticed that his Aunt Paige looked remarkable for her age, but no one had dwelled on what that could mean. She used to laugh it off and attribute it to her hours of beauty sleep—but as she approached sixty they had been forced to look into things further. Paige could have easily passed for a woman decades younger. And when Chris looked at himself and his brother, he could not deny that they did not yet look like they had left their twenties.

It had been hard to accept, but the evidence seemed to suggest that they had all stopped ageing. His father, a whitelighter again after a few years as a mortal, had consulted with the elders and confirmed the uncomfortable truth.

Being half-whitelighter entailed more than orbing and sensing. Technically, none of them were human enough to be bound to the laws of human biology. They were beings of light, like their fathers, and light did not age or die.

Christopher Halliwell was one-hundred and twenty-eight years old now, and he did not look a day over twenty-five.

He probably never would.

For a while, he had tried his best to keep living a normal life. He'd come up with spells and galmours to look his mortal age and tried to keep living the life he had always wanted. But as time went on it became harder and harder to keep up the charade. He'd had to accept that fact that he would never be normal and that he would remain frozen in time as those around him came and went.

His mother had gone first, just before her ninetieth year. That had been hard for everyone, especially his father. Leo had gone off for several months after that, throwing himself into his work and avoiding the manor at all costs. It had been weird to see his father youthful once again, but there had been no point keeping on a mask once his love was gone. He and Bianca tried not to talk about it, but they had both known it would be the same for them one day. And it had been, of course. He had lost her almost fifty years ago.

The love that had echoed across two timelines had ended on a horrible autumn day. It hadn't been demons or warlocks, but a simple human disease which she had grown too weak to fight. Chris had held her as she had taken her last shaky breath.

It had been a terrible blow, no matter how much time he'd had to brace himself. She had been so sick during those last few months, and he had been helpless against the inevitable. Chris wasn't human enough to experience an illness like that, but he had felt his heart shatter the moment she had left him.

Nothing, however, compared to how awful it had been to watch his own children fade away. Apparently, being a quarter-whitelighter did not mean much, aside from a few powers. His son and daughter had led normal lives—they had lived, loved, and died—just like people were supposed to. If it hadn't been for Wyatt, Chris might had ended it all with a trip to a darklighter's lair the day they had buried Matthew.

His brother had held him while he sobbed and his father and Aunt had helped him through those first dark days. Wyatt had been the smart one, in the end. He'd never settled down and thus had not suffered the same losses as those around him. Paige's children were long gone now too. Her grandchildren as well. She understood his pain best, and it had been her who had advised him to finally step away once his son had gone. It was time to let their mortal families live their lives, she had told him. They didn't have a place here anymore.

They had stood in front of the manor for a long time that day, looking at old walls that had witnessed so much of their agony. That was when he had finally dropped his glamour and formally began his life as the cursed immortal nephilim he had never wanted to be. Some probably would have envied him, he had thought with a sad smile. But those people thought only of their own selfish youth. Few would have asked for this once they had experienced what he had.

When he had orbed away that night, looking twenty-five again, he had gone to the one place where he could still begrudgingly belong.

He had gone Up There.

And he had asked the elders to assign him as many charges as he could handle. Anywhere but San Francisco. Then, he had thrown himself into his work with all of the devotion he could muster. That had been a distraction, at least. And it felt good to be doing something.

As a teenager, he had lived in deep denial about what he was. He had tried to be a witch, like his mother, while neglecting the side of himself that tied him to the arrogant powers that be. But Chris had never been the greatest witch—his powers were primarily passive and most had come from his father—so by his thirties he had finally accepted his calling. He had only taken on a few charges back then (he'd been juggling a family and a mortal career as a doctor, after all). But over the years his duties had grown. He was good at his job, there was no way to deny that. He was driven and focused, like a good whiteligher should be. And when he was helping a charge he would sometimes forget that he had once led an entirely different life.

It was tempting to just forget, sometimes. His spellcasting abilities had begun to fade over the years (part of him could still die, it seemed) but he could probably still muster enough wiccan strength to cast a charm to ease his pain. That wasn't really what he wanted, though.

He still treasured the memoires, no matter how much pain they brought. And he could still watch the joys of mortal life from afar.

That was why he had come here.

Today.

It was hard to miss out, and hard to see his family continue to move forward without him. But watching moments like this kept him grounded and reminded him why he continued to work for the greater good, despite the fact that it had dealt him a bitter hand.

As Teresa and her new husband made their way into the car that would whisk them off to their honeymoon, Chris felt a sad smile form on his lips. She was glowing, her dark Halliwell hair flowing gracefully around her shoulders. She looked a bit like his own mother in her prime and it was nice to see that the family resemblance had remained so strong. He would have given anything to wrap her in a warm embrace. But to her, he was nothing but a story. The great-great grandfather who had disappeared, gone back to the heavens, never to be heard from again.

But, even if he could not wish them well in person, he hoped that they could somehow feel him watching over them.

He would always be there, as much as he possibly could.

The Halliwells would always have more than one guardian angel on their side.

"Blessed be." He whispered as he watched them drive down Prescott street and out of sight.

As the well wishers on the lawn began to disperse Chris readied himself to orb. The sound of another arrival, however, caused him to stop abruptly. A column of blue lights had begun to form and it solidified to reveal the shape of his older brother.

There was a moment of silence as Wyatt glanced through the window to the house across the street. The house where they had grown up, still blissfully unaware of what lay ahead.

"I thought I'd find you here." The man commented, brushing a strand of slightly-too-long blonde hair out of his eyes. He had looked the same for over a century now. Chris always found comfort in the fact that, at the very least, he was not completely alone with his fate.

"I had to see her, Wy." He whispered softly. "She got married today."

"I know."

There was another pause. Chris could feel a familiar lump building in his throat, but he did his best to keep it at bay.

"Days like this always make me wonder, you know." He began, taking another look back towards the manor's faded red panels. "I shouldn't be here to see things like this. But I am. And it takes every ounce of strength I have to stay back." Chris paused again. "I know it's not my place anymore. But I have to wonder what we did to deserve this special sort of hell."

Wyatt nodded, his eyes laced with sympathy. He may not have had direct descendants but he still understood what it was like to leave a mortal life behind.

Chris and Wyatt and Paige had been the first, and hopefully only, to face such an odd fate—the first whitelighters to be born into their role without any sort of choice. Every other whitelighter who had ever existed had been allowed to lead a mortal life first. They had been human, and they had been offered the choice to take on this duty when they had died.

That was how it was supposed to be.

But they had never been human and, unbeknownst to them, their destinies had been written the moment they had all been born. They'd all had a taste of a semi-normal life and then it had been ripped away. There was no beginning, middle or end for them. No rebirth. They simply were, and always would be.

Chris wondered how long it would be before he could truly accept that.

"You make it harder, Chris. When you come here."

"I know." He agreed, letting out a long sigh. "I'll stop. One day. But not today."

The blonde nodded again before taking a long stride forward and placing a hand on Chris' shoulder. They stood like that for a long moment—two men who had already seen more than anyone should.

"The elders were right, I know that now." Chris began softly, voicing something he had only uttered a few times before. "We shouldn't be here."

It was an odd thing to say, but he meant every word of it. The more that time dragged on, and the more that he loved and lost, the more Chris had come to realize that his parents had been selfish. They had wanted to be together and had fought for their forbidden love—as a child, he had found the story romantic and heroic. But now, he knew better. The elders had known all along what would come of such a union, and they had been right to advise against it.

Some things were simply not meant to be.

"We're here now, Chris. And we have to find a way."

He let out a long, ragged breath.

"I suppose." He agreed, wishing there was more conviction behind his words. He had never quite shared Wyatt's optimism.

Wyatt did his best to muster a smile. "Come on." He said, giving his brother's shoulder a squeeze before dropping his arm. "There is a meeting about that demon gathering in Paris. Dad and Paige are waiting for us."

Chris nodded. "You go. I'll be there, I just need another moment."

The older brother looked as if he was about to protest but he clearly thought better of it and simply nodded back. "Okay. See you soon." He offered before allowing his body to dissolve into a mass of swirling blue.

Although Chris was in no mood for a meeting at the moment he reasoned that it probably would provide a good distraction. As soon as he could manage a stoic façade, he would go. It was his duty as a whitelighter, after all. That was all he had left to give his strange existence meaning.

Doing his best to steady his breathing, he allowed himself to look out the window one final time.

Almost everyone was gone.

All except the one person it now pained him most to see.

Marie had remained on the lawn, her withered hands grasping the sides of her chair as she looked up towards the darkening sky. The curly dark locks he remembered from her youth were long gone, but his granddaughter still retained the youthful gleam in her bright green eyes. He had always loved those eyes, they were a perfect mirror of his own.

Even from here, he could see that her breathing was more difficult than it should have been and he could not stop himself from wondering how much longer his precious girl had left. He could feel an all-too familiar pit of grief forming in his stomach. She was the last living family member who he had truly known, his last link to the normal existence he had so greatly desired.

As much as he didn't want to, Chris wondered if it truly was time to let go.

He tried to ready himself but, before he could muster the strength to finally orb away, Marie suddenly looked down.

For a moment, he could have sworn that she looked directly towards him, a smile on her weathered face.

And, despite it all, he smiled back.

'No,' he thought determinedly as he watched the old woman return to her star gazing, 'not yet.'

Christopher Halliwell would hold onto his mortal ties for as long as he possibly could.

No matter how much it hurt.

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End file.
